Politics

Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.

Friday

Peter Hoskin

Clegg responds – Part II

Here are Nick Clegg’s answers to the last five questions put forward by CoffeeHousers.  For his first five responses click here. Q: MPs were already a devalued currency with the public following years of labour spin, expense fraud etc. Would you agree that their stock has diminished even further following the refusal of the government, helped by your party’s abstention, to give a referendum on the Lisbon constitution? Can you understand why people are put off politicians by this cynical game of MPs putting party before country? – Pete A: People are fed up with politicians – but for a lot of reasons, not just one. That’s why I’ve said

Thursday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

More Balls

Is it a bigger scandal that six state schools are asking parents for voluntary contributions or that 100,000 children do not get into their first choice school? Ed Balls clearly thinks it is the former as he has gone into full Laura Spence-outrage mode over it, naming and shaming the schools involved. One can’t help but wonder what Balls is up to in trying to turn this into a big story. As Conor Ryan, who used to advise Blair and Blunkett on education, writes, “The problem with turning the issue into a cause celebre is that it alienates many of the good school leaders that this government needs if it

Peter Hoskin

Taxing times for Brown

As James said earlier, things aren’t looking great for Gordon.  And now – as Ben Brogan points out – our Prime Minister’s got a revolt on his hands.  What makes this one particularly damaging is that it’s over matters economic.  Says Brogan: “Bad news for Gordon. At last count 26 of his MPs have signed an EDM calling on Alistair Darling to review the scrapping of the 10p rate of tax … When Mr Brown was Chancellor the idea of a revolt by Labour MPs on tax was nigh unthinkable. Times have changed.”   

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Fixing it

The appalling story of how the Tory Party fixes its MEP candidates is told on ConservativeHome. This won’t be picked up on Fleet Street, as MEPs are such a boring business. But it raises serious questions about the Conservatives’ commitment to localism in running the country, if this is how they treat their own party members.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Labouring on

Peter Riddell is not a man prone to hyperbole so when he writes that “The malaise is real and it is widespread. The Brown Government is in deep trouble” we should sit up and take notice. As Peter notes, much of the problem stems from the teething troubles surrounding the arrival of new people at Number Ten who have not meshed with the old team. One of the oddest things about Stephen Carter’s new hires is why they keep talking to PR Week, hardly a subtle venue for strategic leaking. Philip Webster reports one Minister irritably asking, “What is going on here? Do people think they can go running to

Peter Hoskin

Clegg responds – Part I

Here are Nick Clegg’s answers to the first 5 questions put forward by CoffeeHousers:   Q: If the Lib Dems hold the balance of power in 2010, which Cabinet portfolios are you after, and who would fill them? – Peter   A: That’s just not something I think about.  The Liberal Democrats are an independent party, focused on providing a programme for government across the portfolio areas.  Speculating about coalitions is not a game that I am interested in playing.   Q: You have made rather anti-government spending noises recently. Is there a figure for spending as a %age of GDP which you would regard as roughly about right –

Peter Hoskin

Closer than we thought?

Another poll lead for Boris this morning, but it’s significantly shorter than those 10 and 12 point advantages he’s enjoyed recently. This Guardian / ICM poll – which they’re hawking as “the only one to be carried out by a national newspaper using established techniques” – has Boris as the first choice of 42 percent of voters, compared to 41 percent for Ken. When second preferences are allocated, Boris’s lead increases slightly – 51 percent to 49 percent. He’s winning the battle for the hearts (and votes) of Paddickites. Whilst any lead for the Spectator’s man is encouraging, this latest shows there’s still a lot of work to be done

Wednesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Storm in a Taoiseach…

We knew everything we needed to know about Bertie Ahern from the moment his mentor Charlie Haughey declared that of all the young thrusters in Fianna Fail, Ahern was “the most skillful, the most devious, the most cunning of them all”. It’s tempting to conclude that this endorsement provided sufficient grounds for barring Ahern from public office. Then again, the Irish electorate seems to prefer its leaders crooked. There’s a fine old story – only possibly apocryphal – in which a little old lady tells a journalist that no, she wouldn’t dream of voting for Garret Fitzgerald: how can you trust a man who lives in the same small house

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Where are Britain’s unexploded sub-prime bombs?

Of all the scary economic forecasts we’ve heard recently, perhaps the most chilling is the idea that we’re nine months behind America on the credit crunch. What would it mean for us? And what political effect might it have? In tomorrow’s magazine, George Bridges, former campaigns director for Cameron, does for us what politicians do for themselves at election time. He has asked Experian, the credit rating agency, to trawl its vast database and list sub-prime penetration by constituency. Of the 200 worst affected seats, all but 14 are held by Labour. It is, as George puts it, “a punch in the financial solar plexus for those Brown has purported

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The insiders give the Tories the edge

The Politics Home Index, a poll of 100 political insiders which has just launched, is going to provide a fascinating insight into what the Westminster Village is thinking. Earlier this week, the panel were surveyed on what they expected the result of the next election to be—the results, provided exclusively to Coffee House, make for encouraging reading for the Tories. 34 percent predict a Conservative majority while 32% expect the Conservatives to be the largest party in a hung parliament. By contrast, only 13 percent say the Labour party will have a majority and 22 percent think Labour will be the largest party but fall short of an overall majority.

Peter Hoskin

Bertie Ahern resigns

Bertie Ahern is to step down from his twin role as Irish taoiseach and leader of the Fianna Fáil party on May 6th.  He’s departing under something of a cloud – his personal finances are being sifted through by a corruption tribunal, although he denies any wrongdoing.  History, though, will most likely remember him for his role in the Irish peace process. I’d recommend Three Line Whip’s excellent coverage.

Peter Hoskin

Harman holds her own at PMQs

A bit of a damp squib, really.  Harman held her own against those PMQs titans that are Hague and Cable. And all my anticipatory drooling was for nought.   Hague opened by congratulating Harman on being the first female Labour MP to lead the House at PMQs.  An invite for Harman’s only cringeworthy moment, as she inquired why Theresa May wasn’t opposing her. She suddenly came over all Oprah-esque – handing out “sisterly advice” and asking whether Tory women are to be “seen but not heard”.   The patented Hague Joke soon followed, and it was a good one. If Harman dons the appropriate attire for all occasions – a stab-vest when touring

Peter Hoskin

Ken Livingstone has no shame

Ok, so Political Betting covered this yesterday – among others – but the words “Magpie Mayor” emblazoned across the front of last night’s Evening Standard reminded me to give it a Coffee House mention.  Basically – as this Standard article details – Ken Livingstone is planning to steal Boris’s policy ideas, including that of the “Payback London” scheme.  Worse still, Ken unabashedly admits to this.  Here’s what he had to say in a debate the other night: “I’m stealing your policies. What sort of idiot, when they hear a good idea, wouldn’t take it on board?” Does Ken really think this will ingratiate him with Londoners?

Peter Hoskin

By design, not by accident

Simon Heffer serves up a bracing cup of invective in the Telegraph this morning. His message is that we shouldn’t be too quick to label the Government “incompetent”, as doing so suggests they’ve reached this point by accident rather than by design: “The element of deliberation and deliberateness in what Labour has done makes an accusation of incompetence, or carelessness, seem wide of the mark. Things were meant to be this way. Labour has pursued policies, be they social or economic, for ideological reasons: and when they fail, as so many have, it has not been because of slipshod administration. It is because that was how things were always going to

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Politicians boasting about the women they’ve slept with is not candour: it’s spin

Another terrible night spent tossing and turning, racked with worry over whether or not I have ever had sex with Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democratic party. It is not something I remember doing and on the face of it, both of us being heterosexual, it seems highly unlikely. But one can never be too sure. Given Mr Clegg’s singularly ectoplasmic tenure as leader of his party it seems to me possible that we may have had some desultory form of intercourse without my even knowing about it. He might have slithered in and then out again, wraith-like, while I was oiling the garden shears in the shed,

Daniel Hannan

A chance for the Lords to justify their existence

Like, I suspect, most Spectator readers, I saw no need for Lords reform in the first place. The old chamber functioned perfectly well, as even Labour was forced to admit. But the party took the view that, while it might work in practice, it didn’t work in theory. The hereditary principle, Tony Blair declared, had no place in modern politics: a strange argument, striking as it does directly against the monarchy and indirectly against all property. And so, with no very clear idea of what they wanted, ministers blundered into the current settlement: an appointments system which disproportionately elevates toadies, public-sector groupies and quangocrats. From Labour’s point of view, fair

Tuesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Department of the Wrong End of the Stick

Setting aside the issue of whether or not a House of Lords committee can accurately be considered “influential”… Record levels of immigration have had “little or no impact” on the economic well-being of Britons, an influential House of Lords committee has said. Well, that’s not the point. Or at least it’s not the point as far as I’m concerned. What about the immigrants themselves? Couldn’t we rejoice in their economic advancement and, one supposes (via remissions from immigrant workers), that of their home countries too? Couldn’t that be be something to be celebrated? The world doesn’t stop at the water’s edge after all and in an age in which we

Peter Hoskin

More misery for Clegg

Nick Clegg’s in line for more misery over Europe.  Today, Lord McNally announced that Lib Dem peers would go against Clegg’s orders by not abstaining from the upcoming referendum vote.  Instead, they’re set to vote against a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.   Many of the pro-referendum brigade had pinned their dwindling hopes on the Lords.  But McNally’s revelation makes it extremely unlikely that the UK will get the say it was promised.  In a way, then, Clegg will get the outcome he wanted.  Although his grip on the Lib Dems has been shattered in the process.

Peter Hoskin

Cameron & friends

A perennial problem for Opposition leaders – and particularly those that have never been in Government – is how they put forward their party’s defence credentials.  They haven’t been in the high-level security meetings; they don’t have access to all the confidential data; and they haven’t made any of the key decisions.  Why in a time of crisis should the public depart from the status quo? On the surface, Cameron’s speech today was about how NATO should evolve for the 21st Century.  But he also used it to reassure voters about the Tories’ security nous.  His method for doing that?  Name-dropping.  Here’s one passage that jumped out at me: “The blunt truth is